Dividing the End-World
by RagnartheSemiGreen
Summary: Roland opens a different door, and Ulysses gets a visitor at the end of the Divide. Oneshot. All Hail the Crimson King!


**Author Notes: I make no claim to either Fallout: New Vegas, or the Dark Tower series. If you're interested in a timeline, consider this as an alternative to Jack Mort's door in the **_**Drawing of the Three**_**.**

"You have forgotten the face of your father."

Ulysses turned from his contemplation of the ancient missile. The Courier was still far away, battling Deathclaws on the ruins of the Old World highway. The voice behind him was not the Courier.

In the middle of the central walkway, beside the targeting console, stood a shabbily dressed man, whose weather-beaten face and hard-worn clothing testified to the many miles he had walked. The smooth, worn-down grips of the two revolvers he wore at his waist mutely told stories of hundreds of confrontations across vast distances.

"Who are you, who comes to disturb the ancient ruins of a long dead empire?" Ulysses' voice echoed harshly from behind his breathing mask. His long duster brushed against the railing at his back. This was not as planned; only the Courier and his eyebots were to witness the end of the heathen city of New Vegas at the hands of the Old World establishments once tasked with its defence.

The ragged man tipped his tattered and stained hat back with a mutilated hand, revealing a face as hard as the stone cliffs of the Divide. "I am Roland Deschain, son of Steven, Gunslinger of Gilead of Inner-World. I walk the way towards the Dark Tower that stands past the wastes of End-World. Who are you, who would wake that which should be left sleeping, to murder and burn a city of lights?"

Ulysses felt his torn and dry lips quirk up in a smile. He briefly wondered if he was dreaming, if he was speaking to some twisted yet recognizable reflection, before discarding such idle thoughts. "I am Ulysses, though that was not the name I was given at birth, once of the Twisted-Hair Tribe, once of the Legion, now of the Divide. I have been a soldier, a scout, a spy, and a courier. Now, I shall strike down the last ghosts of the Old World with the spears of ancient America, and avenge all that was stripped from me by the Courier."

Roland nodded gravely. "I see that the Dark Man has paid you a visit, and that you carry the Eye, whether you know it or not. And so, as Gan once said that Red shall always under White, I say to you: You have forgotten your father's face; you have no honor, and seek only destruction. Thus, I shall bring destruction unto you."

The Courier wondered at the strange silence from Ulysses. Ever since the last transmission at the foot of the High Road, ED-E had not conveyed a single message from the peculiar ex-courier. Still, the markings the man had left behind guided the Courier on through the Divide, over building and under the ground.

The Courier arrived in the building the marks had guided him towards. Pushing the door open, the Courier cleared away the last mechanical sentinals that defended the empty and crumbling halls. Finally, prepared for the end of this bizarre episode, the Courier pushed open the last door, and climbed the last staircase, only to reel back in astonishment. The vast and empty hall was littered with warheads, all ready for launching. A single console was smashed, spitting sparks, pockmarked with bulletholes. In the center of the temple-like launch deck, driven back against a handrail by the force of the bullets that had slain him, was a tall, dark man dressed in the distinctive duster of a courier. On either side of the dead man were the shattered remnants of an eyebot.

The Courier approached the riven body, and wondered at how Ulysses, for who else could be here, wearing the Old World flag, had met his end, deep in the Divide.

A droplet of red fell from above, and splattered across the breathing mask strapped to the fallen courier's face. The Courier looked up, and saw a stylized eye, drawn in what appeared to be blood, across the missile that loomed over the fallen Ulysses.

In the shadows behind the Courier, the Dark Man pushed a button with a bloodied finger, sending the missile with its attached warhead towards the New Vegas strip, and simultaneously launching the other "Spears" towards the major population centers of both the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion. Randall Flagg chuckled as the Courier collapsed to his knees, tears flowing from his eyes as the missiles hurtled out of their silos, the flights of which he was powerless to stop.

Once again, the hellish fury of nuclear fire engulfed the Mojave, as the Apocalypse paid a return visit to the lands that had once been the American Southwest. Arizona, Nevada, and California all sprouted mushroom clouds and the reborn cities once more returned to the flame.

All Hail the Crimson King.


End file.
